The Astra Chronicle
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Too dear: Astra walk away from Ştefan Bodişteanu
$1.4M was the most the club would pay and Botosani were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Match12 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Astra
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Andrei Ratiu beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad14 Sep 2026
David Barbu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Astra
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bogdan Ratiu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Adrian Deac: “We have to be better”
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Young player of the week: Florin Iancu
At 17 he was the best of everybody his age in the division for one weekend. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Match12 Sep 2026
Astra draw a blank against Pandurii
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Pandurii defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A season on the outside for Gonçalo Moreira
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Astra has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
In brief
- The dugout No place in the plan for Andrei Balasa
- Loan watch The goals keep arriving from Daniel Tanase’s exile
- Market The shop window has Adrian Mitrita in it